Vietnamese Oil Sets $840,000 Auction Record at Christie’s

“View From the Hilltop”, an oil on canvas painting by Le Pho which sold for $840,000 on Nov. 22 at Christie's Hong Kong, setting an auction record for a Vietnamese painting.

“View From the Hilltop”, an oil on canvas painting by Le Pho which sold for $840,000 on 22 Nov. 2014 at Christie's Hong Kong, setting an auction record for a Vietnamese painting.

The seller was Patrick Lorenzi, an Oslo-based Frenchman whose great grandfather purchased the painting from the artist when he was governor of Tonkin, the French colonial province in northern Vietnam, said Jean-Francois Hubert, senior consultant for Vietnamese art at Christie’s.

“This painting went from Hanoi to Paris to Oslo to Hong Kong directly from this family,” said Hubert. The 1937 oil on canvas is titled “View From the Hilltop.”
The previous Vietnamese auction record of HK$3.03 million set in May 2013 by Nguyen Phan Chanh at Christie’s Hong Kong was broken just minutes before the Pho sale when another Chanh also belonging to Lorenzi, sold for HK$3.16 million.